The Art of Deep Listening & Negotiation

Communication is Everything

I’ve seen so many relationships and opportunities break down due to a simple misunderstanding which resulted from an inability to effectively communicate. The ability to communicate is essential in business, relationships, and life itself. If you are an ineffective communicator, then you’ll always be leaving money and opportunities on the table.

You could have the greatest product, service, or opportunity for a potential client, customer, or partner, but they’ll never know it if you can’t communicate.

The First Rule of Communication

The first element, and thus the first breakdown in most miscommunications, can inevitably be traced back to one thing: listening. If you aren’t paying attention and listening to your client, then you’re going to miss critical clues that would have revealed their opinion of you as well as their unmet needs.

Without listening then you don’t know why they may or may not want what you have to offer, how they feel about you and this conversation, and any potential unmet needs they may have.

Listening Isn’t Just Verbal Cues

Most people don’t have the capacity to listen unconditionally. Another way of saying this is they don’t understand the art of deep listening. This is a form of listening so rare and yet so powerful that it can create deep relationships by itself.

What most people believe is listening is referred to as ‘active listening.’ This form of listening is much better than unconscious listening, which is basically just reacting to what someone is telling you. In active listening, you are listening for verbal cues and purposefully responding to these cues. But it’s far from the ability to deeply listen.

In deep listening you are operating from a place of inner stillness without ulterior motive as well as being emotionally trigger free. This means that you can hear what this other person is saying unconditionally in such a way that enables them to say things to you they’ve either never spoken of or haven’t spoken of in a long time.

If you’re able to do this for someone don’t be surprised if you both, gain their trust as well as their friendship, in quick order. This is because you may very well have given them an experience they’ve never had before.

Projection

You see the average person does not ever truly listen. They are merely waiting to either project their opinion and views about what you just said or for an opportunity to talk about themselves. It’s fine if you want to be average, but most people I meet don’t want to be average. Most people I encounter are always striving to be a better version of themselves.

Because of the rampant level of projection in our society most people have become reserved about sharing their real-life problems. In turn, this creates an environment packed full of unhealed people who never get to resolve their issues and, instead, will eventually project their unhealed issues onto other people.

Becoming a Deep Listener

It’s important to understand that a deep listener is not someone who allows people to cross their boundaries and emotionally dump all over them. Some people are born with this ability, but do not fully understand their gift. All they know is that random strangers will come up to them off the street and proceed to tell them their life’s story.

This is not that.

Deep listening is done purposefully and consciously. It doesn’t happen at random and is not done by chance. If you are someone who habitually has people walk right up to you and begin to entrain you into listening to their life story, or worse, emotionally dump on you, then likely you need to work on creating some healthy boundaries. It should always be a conscious choice to listen to someone’s story or problems.

Although some people are born with this ability, deep listening is not something that can be taught. It must be embodied.

Most of the best deep listeners are people who have overcome massive life adversities and thus have undergone a certain amount of egoic diminishment. When someone goes through humbling life experiences, they become less reactive to potential triggers, more empathetic to other people’s struggles, and much less projective in nature (meaning to ‘tell’ someone what to do instead of unconditionally listening).

The other way to begin to embody deep listening is through engaging in a daily mind/body practice such as meditation. When you meditate every day, you begin to have what we refer to as many ‘subtle, cumulative benefits.’ In fact, they are so subtle, that you rarely notice these benefits until you stop meditating.

I’ve taught many people to meditate over the years and watched as their lives began to take off over the course of a couple weeks into their practice. Conversely, I’ve watched as, things began to ‘pick up,’ they would then fall of their practice because they would become busier. The conscious connection is rarely made that the reason their lives began to take off in the first place was because of the subtle cumulative benefits of meditation, and the resulting crash of things dying off was because of the cessation of that same practice. I call it ‘ditching the dance partner that brought you to the dance.’

When you meditate or perform breathwork daily it cultivates an inner stillness within your mind. In turn, this inner stillness facilitates a deeper level of both self-awareness as well as environmental awareness. When in the setting of a conversation you will notice and pick up on things about the other person that you had previously been unaware of.

Negotiations

Becoming a deep listener is not only valuable to help you understand someone else’s unmet needs, but also enables you to see someone coming who is potentially being disingenuous.

Many people in the corporate world must deal with this daily, especially if they are vying for a promotion. They may very well be steeped in an environment rife with conniving and manipulative individuals. It’s unfortunate, but if you have cultivated the skill of deep listening then you will be better armed to deal with this.

Little things begin to jump out at you. Their tone inflection, the emphasis on certain words, and their body language will begin to tell you a story. You will become aware of where the conversation is heading long before they get there. The value of this cannot be overestimated. If you already know where they’re taking the conversation, then you can begin to corner people who are being manipulative and disingenuous before they get there. The point is that you’ll be much less likely to get caught off guard.

The same goes for negotiating a buyout or a big business deal that you’re attempting to close. The art of deep listening is invaluable when it comes to understanding the hidden message. What is it that you’re prospective buyer/investor is really saying? What is their unmet need? What is it that’s really motivating them?

When you listen, really listen, deeply listen, these things will make themselves apparent to you. In turn, instead of settling for what you can get, you’ll be able to sell your business for the actual value. Or close more deals. Or sell more products. In any event, being able to deeply listen can and will facilitate a bigger bottom line for you.

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Interested in learning more?

Then contact me for a free consultation:

www.christopherpinckley.com

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